How I Met Your Mother | Initial Research
February 02, 2018
Brief:
To choose a set from any television programme or small scale film of your choice and recreate it up to the finished model stage, as a theoretical production.
When I thinking of potential films to base my Art Direction Project on, I was quite fixated on doing an action or fantasy movie set, as those are my favourite movie genre.
However, Anna mentioned that we should try and find a movie/ or film production that we could potentially be useful and more related to the pathways we might wish to branch off after graduation. From there, I started thinking about the set of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, or How I Met Your Mother, as both of them focus more on interior scenes of the home, which is potentially something I might go into in the future.
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
'How I Met Your Mother'
American sitcom series.
Synopsis (Taken from IMDb)
A father recounts to his children, through a series of flashbacks, the journey he and his four best friends took leading up to him meeting their mother.
For this project, I will be focusing on the living room in Ted's (The protagonist) apartment where most of the central action takes place in the series.
Spoilers Alert:
And frankly speaking, just me rambling. Ops. Hehe. Once I start, I cannot stop. Random fact about Stef, when I was a toddler, I did not speak at all until I was 2 years old. According to my mum, all my other siblings started speaking much earlier, so because I did not, she was getting a little worried and brought me to see the Doctor. Turns out, once I start, I just cannot stop and now I am the chatterbox in the family. So yeah, I ramble. Anyway, please feel free to skip till the end of the asterisk.
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Here is a little backstory of the space I will be recreating. (And also because I want to show off my knowledge of the series. Haha. Okay, let's see if I can summarise all 9 seasons into a condense version. :P )
In this series, the plot begins when Marshal and Ted, two best friends, decided to move in together after college. At the beginning, Lily (Marshal's high school sweetheart) was not officially staying there yet. However, after she and Marshal got engaged, she moved in. When they got married, they bought a new apartment together elsewhere (Dowisetrepla) BUT, they still did not move out until about a year later as they realised that their new apartment is a little wonky and needs to be levelled out.
In season 4, Ted proposed to Stella and intended to move out to stay with her while Lily and Marshal finally moves into their own place. By this time, the series had 4 amazing seasons of run time and I thought maybe its the end. Luckily for me, but unfortunately for Ted, Stella dumped him at the alter, which meant he never moved out and the story continues.
Later in Season 5, Robin comes back from Japan and have been bunking of Marshal and Lily's couch (Robin is Lily's Best Friend) before Ted offers her the extra room at his place since it is now vacant. What was supposed to be a temporary stay soon became something more permanent and Robin stayed there for the next 3 years.
Midway through Season 5, Robin moved out to stay with her boyfriend, Don. But 3 episodes later, she broke up with Don and moves back into the apartment.
In Season 7, Ted proclaims his love for Robin, making things awkward as she does not reciprocate. She then moves out of the apartment for good to avoid further complications. Ted also moves out of the apartment and left it to both Marshal and Lily who wanted a change of scenery from their suburb live.
Finally, in the last season, Marshal and Lily moves out from the apartment at the arrival of Lily's third child. And that is the last time The Apartment is being showed.
(Ps. There was a lot of other things going on as well, but this is a summary of just things that happens with the house. And as you can imagine, there are some changes to the set dressing, but most of it remains constant. If you actually read all of this, you're a star!)
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I think I am a HIMYM expert by now. I have been rematching old episodes and trying to get the perfect screenshot of the living room to do a rough floorpan. But first, here are some of the high definition images I found online.
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| Rough Overview Of The Entire Living Room Set |
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| Front View |
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| Unfurnished Living Room Space Of The Apartment |
I also found these 3 photos a really good starting point as the first and second image helps give me a feel of the overall layout, but it is the last image of the unfurnished room which really allows me to get a good gauge of the size of the room.
The Apartment consist of a living room, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and one kitchen. As seen from the picture, the back of the living room is used as Ted's study, the room on the left leading to his bedroom, and the room on the right to Marshal and Lily's or Robin's (Depending on what season you are watching)
I was not kidding when I said that I think I will become a HIMYM walking encyclopaedia after this project. And I think this next bit will prove what a greek I have turned into. Ops? Hehe.
In an episode in Season 6, Lily runs across the 86 street subway to McLaren's (The bar just below their apartment.) In that same episode, Marshal claims he can get to Gregor's Steakhouse faster on foot than taking the bus. Ted shows the route directions from his laptop from McLaren's to the Steakhouse. And WAIT FOR IT...the starting address of the place is 150 W. 85th Street. BOOM BAM, CALL ME A CHAMPION ><
Now that I know the set is located on Upper West Side New York, I started searching up 2 bedroom NYC floorplans so that I could get the rough dimension of my space and adjust accordingly from there.
I was not kidding when I said that I think I will become a HIMYM walking encyclopaedia after this project. And I think this next bit will prove what a greek I have turned into. Ops? Hehe.
In an episode in Season 6, Lily runs across the 86 street subway to McLaren's (The bar just below their apartment.) In that same episode, Marshal claims he can get to Gregor's Steakhouse faster on foot than taking the bus. Ted shows the route directions from his laptop from McLaren's to the Steakhouse. And WAIT FOR IT...the starting address of the place is 150 W. 85th Street. BOOM BAM, CALL ME A CHAMPION ><
Now that I know the set is located on Upper West Side New York, I started searching up 2 bedroom NYC floorplans so that I could get the rough dimension of my space and adjust accordingly from there.
I have never stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment before, as my family is quite large, so these blueprints of NYC apartments actually aid me in getting a better grasps on how some of the spaces are in relative to one another. From there, I tried to make my own measurements.
Taking into account that this is a studio set, I increased the dimensions on all of them as it needs to be big enough to accommodate the cameras. I got to admit though, I was only made aware of this when I stumbled across an article with the directors of the show. (See Footnote below for link). I also found out that the inspiration behind The Apartment actually came from the directors own first hand experience! They actually wanted the set much smaller for authentic. Because, lets face it, the boys just graduated from college, where are they going to get the money to buy a large place? But I bet you did not think about that when you are watching the show. #BehindTheSceneOfSetDesigners
On another note, I recommend clinking on the article link below. It was an interesting read, because I did even know that there were so many "rules" to filming. Plus for all you lazy readers, its very short. Much shorter than this post for sure. Hehe.
- ↑ Thomas, Craig. "How I Met Your Mother's Creator Brings Memories to Life". TV Guide, 2007-11-12.
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